


pianissimo

by imagines



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Depression Recovery, Dissociation, Grieving, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Keith Big Bang 2019, M/M, Passive Suicidality, Post-Kerberos, i swear the happy ending is real though!, keith in the desert, keith reads shiro’s journal, the post-it theory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-23
Updated: 2019-09-23
Packaged: 2020-10-26 08:00:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20738894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imagines/pseuds/imagines
Summary: After Kerberos, Keith flees to the desert with a handful of photographs, an old sweatshirt, and Shiro’s handwritten journal. According to the official story, his best friend—his light—now rests among the stars; yet Shiro is woven into everything Keith has with him—even the walls of the cabin, which Shiro helped him repair after its years of abandonment. Surrounded by memories, Keith sinks into grief like a soft bed.Living becomes surviving becomes existing, until even existence loses his interest. He isn’t trying to die—but he’s not trying to live, either. Fate, chance, luck: whatever it’s called, it now decides Keith’s destiny. And rock bottom is much further down than he ever imagined.A strange energy calls to him, then. Something is out there for him, and the desert wants him to find it. For the first time in months, he feels curious, fascinated, challenged,focused, and he throws himself into the hunt—until one night, when a falling star becomes much more than it appears.





	pianissimo

**Author's Note:**

> **Important note**: This fic contains multiple intense descriptions of passive suicidal ideation. There are no _active_ suicide attempts involved. However, Keith comes close to dying several times as a result of not caring whether he stays alive. The ending of the fic is hopeful, though, and shows him beginning to recover. <3
> 
> This fic also comes with a playlist! ["Miles From Where You Are"](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2O4ckTDWjNss7KwUcCBdbz) \- arranged chronologically according to events in the fic. Enjoy the <s>pain</s> pretty music. :)

He thought he’d been alone before. Now, lying on his back in the bare sandy dirt, Keith realizes he’s reached a new realm of solitude. It is cold in the desert at night, and a quiet wind flutters down the open collar of his jacket; eventually, his skin numbs itself in protest. The stars glare—apathetic little fucks. He closes his eyes against their sullen brilliance.

Some weeks ago, a detachment had escorted him from a midday class to a tiny windowless room. Out there, they’d told him, were three corpses. Or pieces of them, or particles. None of them could say for certain. And if they couldn’t be certain about that, then they damn well couldn’t be certain about anything else—which he’d told them. Loudly. In front of a large group of brand-new dreamy-eyed students, after throwing open the door to the horrible little room so hard it left a dent in the wall. The startled _o_’s of their mouths had been the only satisfying part of _that_ scene; afterward, he’d gone slamming into his dorm to await the consequences. Some people leave their mark on the collective spirit of the Garrison. Keith has always preferred the tangible.

That time, they’d been understanding. Grief will do that to anyone, they said, their voices blurring into a hypnotic drone of useless comfort. He had gripped the arms of the chair they’d sat him in and stared down at his thighs. They hoped he could come to them the next time it got to be too much, before things got out of hand.

Things had been out of hand for a long time already, though.

* * *

Later, Keith will say he always believed Shiro was alive.

This is a lie. Or—less of a lie; more of a permanent edit to his memories. In the first days after the Kerberos disaster, his grief is like a chainsaw to the chest, ripping him open from throat to guts. It’s the same sort of pain he discovered as a child, the moment a police officer told him Dad wasn’t going to come home from work ever again. It feels like he will die of it; he already knows he won’t.

But doubt seeps in despite his agony, a cold and subtle trickle that weakens the foundations of the Garrison’s claims. They think he’s got a crazy hunch. To Keith, it’s an epiphany: Shiro wouldn’t have crashed. Not on Earth. Not on Kerberos. His talent is known across the span of the nation. His sim records prove his ability to handle everything from freak weather shifts, to mechanical failure, to ambush by psychic aliens.

If Shiro didn’t crash, then something else must have gone wrong. And if the Garrison is trying to blame Shiro, either they don’t want to admit they don’t _know_ what happened, or they know what happened and are keeping it a secret. Either way, Shiro’s death is not a certainty. Taking all evidence into account, it’s more reasonable to assume that Shiro survived whatever catastrophe occurred.

Apparently, Matthew Holt’s crazy tech genius of a kid sister agrees that the Garrison has something to hide, because she messages him late one night with an intriguing proposition.

23:08 [unknown]: keith are you still up?

23:09 K. Kogane: who is this?

23:09 [unknown]: oh good!! i was hoping you were awake bc i need the passcode for iversons office and its kind of time sensitive

23:09 [unknown]: this is katie holt btw

23:10 [unknown]: im outside his office, can you hurry?

Keith stares at his datapad for a moment. She’s already _inside_ the Garrison? He’s tempted to respond _what makes you think i have the passcode?_, but curiosity gets the better of him. Besides, he’d stolen the passcode weeks ago; he just hasn’t figured out what to do with it yet. But if Katie’s anything like Matt always described, she’ll think of a good use for it.

23:10 K. Kogane: 071518. delete this message when you get it.

23:10 K. Kogane: oh and have fun

23:11 [unknown]: delete what? i never saw anything. good night keith :)

23:12: K. Kogane: hey how did you get my number anyway??

She doesn’t answer, and he deletes the chat and falls asleep without thinking much else of it. In the morning, he hears rumors of a girl getting caught breaking into top-secret mission records the night before. He does his best to school his expression into something that implies _oh, what a shameful crime_ rather than _fuck yeah, Katie!_

* * *

Keith sits through a saccharine candlelight vigil, skips class for two days, and returns just in time for a team sim exam that he’d completely forgotten about. He follows his engineer and comm spec into the cockpit, straps in, and lasts maybe sixty seconds before he crashes the sim straight into an asteroid. Ears ringing, he doesn’t hear a single word of critique from the professor afterward. But as soon as the professor turns her back to set up the next team’s flight, he does catch James rolling his eyes.

“Fuckin’ loverboy strikes again.” James keeps his voice low to avoid detection by the professor, but a few of the other students overhear and snicker.

Keith’s hands curl into fists. He’s a winter river sealed with ice, moments away from cracking open into a roaring flood. “Why are you calling me that?”

“Because you’re acting like it’s your _boyfriend_ who died,” James sneers. “Can’t you get your shit together?”

(Twenty minutes from now, Keith will sit across a table from Iverson and a Garrison security officer and insist that he doesn’t remember what happens next. This will be the truth, although they won’t believe him.)

James is curled up on the floor, hands over his face, whimpering. The students who were laughing have turned silent and pale.

Keith’s right hand feels numb and _wrong_, like the time he accidentally slammed it in the door of his dad’s pickup. There’s blood on his knuckles, but he doesn’t see any open wounds.

There’s blood on James, too—slick and red, smeared over his mouth and nose, soaking into his shirtfront.

Keith lets his hands fall to his sides. It feels like he’s watching himself in a dream, barely linked to his own body, _loverboy loverboy loverboy _pounding in his head like a bass drum.

A hand falls on his shoulder, heavy and accusing. “Come with me,” the professor says.

* * *

“Mr. and Mrs. Griffin have declined to press charges,” Iverson informs him a few days later. “You are, however, no longer welcome in the Galaxy Garrison’s astroexploration program. Assaulting another student is inexcusable to begin with, and given your record…”

Keith stops listening. The Garrison has been waiting for him to fuck up bad enough to kick him out, and now that it’s finally happening, it’s almost a relief. He’s a pressure cooker with a broken safety valve, and relief comes only in the form of an explosion. In this moment, he feels calmer than he has in weeks.

“—We can’t be your parents, Cadet.”

The wall behind Iverson’s head is a mosaic of framed and shining achievements. Shiro had some of those in his quarters, too. He should have had more of them. He should have had more time.

“I don’t need parents,” Keith mutters. “I just need someone to _care_.” To care what happens to him, to care what he wants, to care that he’s hurting. He should never have let himself get used to having someone on his side. It would have been safer to keep on expecting to be alone.

“Is there someone we can call for you?”

Keith doesn’t like Iverson’s tone. Like everyone else, Iverson is _concerned._ They all say, we’re concerned about you, Keith. You haven’t been attending class. You haven’t been completing your homework. You’ve been acting out. Please, Keith, make yourself easier to deal with. Shut your grief away so that your behavior is more convenient for us.

What they don’t get is that it’s like asking a volcano to swallow its lava; to force down the eruption until it’s only internal; to squeeze itself back into a palatable shape. Even Shiro never asked that of Keith. On bad days, he’d take Keith to the training room, teaching him to aim his fury at punching bags and weights instead of at other people. On worse days, they’d go to the roof and sit together in the shadow of a cooling tower, and Shiro would gentle him with an arm around his shoulders. They didn’t even need to talk.

“You know there isn’t anyone,” Keith says.

Iverson sighs, apparently defeated. “Then we’ll need to contact the group home. I’m sorry. I know it’s not your favorite option, but you’ll only have to stick it out for a few more months.”

“Yeah,” Keith says, vacantly. “Just a few months.” Already his mind is racing ahead to his sparsely-furnished room, where a duffel bag hangs on the back of his closet door. All he has to do is fill it up and go. Almost as far back as he can remember, Keith has been ready to run, and this time is no different.

* * *

His feet carry him to Adam’s quarters before he’s had a conscious thought of what he might be doing. After the launch, most of Shiro’s belongings were put in storage. But there have been other launches; others who were left behind. And every time, there are remnants.

Adam doesn’t seem surprised by Keith appearing at his door. Maybe the news of Keith’s expulsion has already reached him. “Why don’t you come in? I was just making coffee.”

“Sure. Can’t stay long, though. They’re coming to pick me up this afternoon, so I gotta pack.” Keith doesn’t say what it is he’s packing for. Letting Adam assume Keith will go quietly gives Adam plausible deniability.

“I wish I could help you,” Adam says, when he’s got Keith settled on the sofa with a steaming mug. He’d remembered exactly how Keith takes his coffee: just this side of too bitter, extra cream. Harsh yet satisfying.

“You tried.” Keith shrugs. “It’s not your fault.” His eyes dart around the apartment, hunting. Then he sees it: a familiar book with a black leather cover, worn at the corners. It’s lying on its side on the edge of a bookshelf next to Adam’s desk, not gathering dust as Keith would have assumed. Keith looks away immediately, pretending he’s seen nothing of great importance.

From the other end of the sofa, Adam pushes his glasses up his nose, a nervous habit Keith recognizes from before he and Shiro broke up. “You still have a future ahead of you, Keith. Even if it’s not at the Garrison. Don’t let this define you.”

“Who said I was going to?” Keith stares Adam down, mulish. He didn’t come here for platitudes, and he doesn’t want Adam’s advice.

“I just meant, Shiro would have wanted you to—”

Keith sets his mug down on the coffee table with too much force. The clatter of ceramic against glass makes Adam go quiet. “You, of all people, don’t get to talk about what Shiro wants.”

Adam lowers his gaze. “I can’t say you’re wrong about that.”

“Do you regret it? Leaving him?” Why he’s choosing this moment to challenge Adam, he cannot say. Maybe because it’s his last chance to do it.

“Part of me does. And part of me…” Adam’s hands tighten around his mug. “We couldn’t find freedom in each other, is the thing. So part of me is glad I did it, because he deserved better than endless compromises that didn’t make either of us happy.”

“You think getting dumped made him happy?” Keith spits. “He _loved_ you.”

“There’s more to a relationship than love.” Adam stands abruptly. “I’ll get us some more coffee.”

The moment Adam vanishes around the corner into the kitchen, Keith makes his move. His steps are silent on the thick carpet, and it’s the work of seconds to grab the leather-bound book and shove it into his backpack. He zips it shut, careful to keep that silent too.

Then he notices the medals and plaques tucked away in a small glass-paned cabinet beside the bookshelf. All of them shout Shiro’s accomplishments. Keith steals a glance over his shoulder. He can still hear Adam puttering around in the kitchen—water running, the fridge door opening, a teaspoon clinking.

The cabinet door doesn’t even creak when he eases it open. Must be well-oiled. Keith freezes for a moment, staring at the array before him, uncertain which one to select. He wishes he could just take them all, but of course that would be noticed.

One medal catches his eye: a golden ring that encloses a hand holding a star. Not long after Keith joined the Garrison, there was an accident—a test flight gone wrong, an emergency landing, and a pilot freed from her ship only minutes before it caught fire. Shiro, who led the rescue effort, was awarded that medal. _For exceptional bravery_, Keith remembers. He’d been in the audience watching as Commander Holt pinned it over Shiro’s heart. That’s the one he wants.

But he’s already spent too much time deciding, and Adam returns just as Keith is slipping the medal into his pocket. The open cabinet door, his expression no doubt broadcasting his guilt—there’s no chance of hiding what he’s doing.

He expects Adam to yell, or kick him out, or even report him for theft. Instead, Adam just gets this horrible, sad look on his face. “You know, I don’t really need all of those anyway. Go ahead and take one.”

Keith’s hand is still in his pocket, wrapped tight around the cool metal disc. “You’re not going to make me give it back?” His voice is barely audible.

“You were friends,” Adam says. “You should have something to remember him by. Is there anything else of his you’d like?”

Adam probably wouldn’t give up the journal voluntarily. So Keith doesn’t mention it. “No, this is okay. Um—unless—do you have any photos I could keep? We didn’t take very many together.”

“Yeah, of course.” Adam goes to his bookshelf—Keith steels himself in case he notices what’s missing—but all he does is pull down a thick photo album. “I have digital copies of all of these, so you can take whatever you want.” He swallows hard. “I’m gonna—I’ll be right back, okay? You can take your time.” He vanishes into the bathroom, and Keith hears the water running in the sink for a long, long time. He resolves not to say anything about it.

The album is mostly photographs of Shiro and Adam’s relationship: Their hands, fingers interlaced. A kiss beneath a sky flaring bright with fireworks—there’s snow on the ground, and Shiro’s wearing a silver plastic tiara that reads HAPPY NEW YEAR. Adam carrying Shiro piggyback, both of them laughing. He wonders who took the ones of both of them—Matt, maybe? This was another world, of which Keith only ever caught glimpses. The way Shiro was talking before the launch, it was a world on the verge of collapse.

There are photos of Shiro alone, too. Keith’s favorite is one of Shiro in profile, lit by a sunset, gazing up at the sky with his hands in his jacket pockets. In another, he’s fiddling with some kind of model, tiny pieces of wood and metal scattered around him as he sits crosslegged on the floor. On the following page, it’s revealed that he’d been building a miniature space shuttle—the old kind that they used nearly two centuries ago, when the most “space travel” ever meant was a trip to the moon and back. Keith slides all three photos out of their protective plastic sheets and sets them aside.

Toward the middle of the album, Keith stumbles across a series of images that make his heart race. The first is of Shiro from behind, elbows deep in the workings of his hoverbike. It must have been a hot day, given the damp, dark patches of sweat on his gray regulation T-shirt. In the second, he’s turned to face the camera, but has pulled up the hem of his shirt to wipe his forehead, exposing his abs. His shorts have slid down his hips, and Keith swears he can just make out a line of dark hair low on Shiro’s belly. The third photo, though, is the real kicker. Shiro’s shirt is completely off, tossed somewhere out of the frame, and he’s stepped closer to the camera, grinning. Making eye contact. Like he knows whoever is taking the photo wants him, and he plans to work his best angles until they can’t think straight.

Keith weighs the very strong chance that Adam will notice which photos are missing, against his all-consuming desire to see and remember as much of Shiro as possible. The argument with himself doesn’t last long—he nabs that final photo of Shiro shirtless and tucks it in among the others.

“Find any you like?” Adam asks, when he returns from his self-imposed exile. His eyes are red; Keith looks away.

“A few,” Keith says vaguely. “Thanks for letting me look, but I gotta go. They’re coming to get me pretty soon.” He declines to mention the fact that if he gets his way, “they” will have to leave without him.

“Of course. …Hey, Keith,” Adam calls, as Keith is heading for the door with his backpack slung over his shoulder. “Don’t be a stranger, will you? Keep in touch. I’d like to know that you’re doing okay, if you don’t mind.”

It’s a nice thought, likely born of Adam’s longing for a life that is gone now, leaving behind only tattered remains. “Sure, I’ll try,” Keith promises, having little intent of following through.

* * *

There’s not much in Keith’s dorm room that he cares to take with him. His favorite red and white leather jacket, a pair of fingerless gloves Shiro gave him, his knife, and—with a fragment of responsibility kicking in—all of his socks and underwear. He wishes he could bring along his datapad, but the Garrison probably has a tracker on it. So he sits on his bed and flicks through his photo gallery one last time, wishing he could transfer all the ones he’d taken of Shiro into his mind in perfect glowing color; knowing that his memory will have to suffice. Then, in his final farewell to the Garrison, he taps the “Factory Reset” option and watches the screen go blank.

Getting out of the Garrison unseen isn’t easy, but Shiro had taught Keith where to find all the maintenance tunnels, which rooftop access doors led to useful hiding places, and how to count the steps of approaching hallway patrols to know when it was safe to keep moving. Soon enough, Keith makes it to the open desert, and from there it’s just a matter of using canyons and caves to conceal his trail.

By the time he arrives at the cabin, the sun has begun to slope down toward the western horizon. The officials sent to fetch him must have already been and gone. Maybe they’ll try to find him; maybe not. Either way, he’s the only one with a key to this place, and he’ll just have to lay low for now.

In the dying light, the cabin glows in warm shades of rose and gold, welcoming him home. He hasn’t been here since before the reports came in about Kerberos, and the interior is coated in a fine layer of dust, but it’s otherwise tidy. An old couch slumps below a broad window whose panes are foggy with grime. In front of it rests a table made of a wide, bare board resting on cinder blocks and faded books. A yellowed poster still hangs on the wall, held up by rusty thumbtacks—the image is of a spaceship Keith remembers hearing about when he was little. Years later, after a long stretch of grief and hopelessness, he’d stood in front of that very ship with Shiro at his side. His father had built the cabin, and though their old house is gone now, the cabin still stands. It had fallen into severe disrepair while Keith was in foster care, but Shiro had helped him fix it up. Shiro’s touch is visible everywhere: in the strokes of spackling and paint, the new porch railing that replaced a warped and graying one, and the well-sealed windows that slide smoothly open and shut. By tending to the repairs, Shiro had woven himself into the walls. Here, Keith is alone, yet surrounded by the evidence of Shiro’s existence.

Unpacking is a matter of a few minutes. He lays his spare clothing in a creaky bureau drawer. The photos and medal, he tacks to an aging corkboard that’s already full of pinholes but still usable. The journal… the journal. He burns to read it; to immerse himself in whatever words Shiro might have seen fit to inscribe on its pages. But these could be the last words Shiro ever gives him, and Keith needs to ration them, like water droplets on a dry and desperate tongue.

At last, he places the journal in the center of the makeshift table, and sits down on the couch. A cloud of dust puffs up around him, making him sneeze. He’s going to have to give this place a thorough cleaning—in the morning, though. He’s far too tired right now, his body exhausted from the trek through the desert, and his mind stretched to its limit by the fears and betrayals of the day.

All of a sudden, the cabin seems much too small too quickly. He can’t _breathe_ in here—he needs air; he needs space. He scrambles to his feet and hurries out the door, down the creaky porch steps, and out onto the barren ground. His knees give way, and he sinks to the earth, the warm sand welcoming him.

There’s water around here somewhere, maybe left by a recent storm. Keith can hear frogs peeping, a faint chorus of ecstasy. He closes his eyes and listens: he has never felt more alone, yet the desert is not lonely. Insects hum out in the scrub-brush, and several coyotes howl together in a dissonant chord.

He stays there until the Milky Way spills across the endless sky; until he can feel the turning of the earth beneath his body. All the visible stars, he knows, are part of the same galaxy in which he lives on a mysterious, life-filled planet. That same galaxy saw fit to bring Shiro into being, to raise him up and send him out, only to let him vanish in the outer reaches of the solar system in a fit of cruelty without sentience.

On a memorial wall in the center of the Garrison, there are bronze plaques engraved with the names of those who gave their lives in service to the cause of astroexploration. (That’s what they say at all the funerals. That’s what they said at Shiro’s. That he _gave_ his life, as if it was expected or planned, a gift offered freely. And maybe Shiro was ready for the possibility. But maybe he wasn’t.) One of the plaques has Shiro’s name on it. It’s screwed tight to the wall, semi-permanent, though it could be removed if need be.

Keith had thought about stealing it, he won’t lie. But they would have just replaced it if he had.

He stays there until the earth begins to cool, the core of him aching, crushing in on itself like a black hole that he has only just discovered, as he falls through space—the same space in which Shiro still exists in some form or another. He needs to believe Shiro is alive. Is it a betrayal if his belief slips in certain moments? Does it mean he’s given up?

He stays there until the wind blows the feeling from his skin. Only then, numbed to the marrow, does he ease himself up onto his frozen feet, and make his way back into the dark cabin. It is dark inside, and he leaves the curtains on the window wide open in hopes of inviting even a scrap of moonlight. The windows are so dirty that no one would be able to see in anyway.

The insulation in the cabin leaves something to be desired, and Keith immediately starts ransacking the various drawers and cabinets in search of a way to warm himself. Finally he comes across one that contains a stack of blankets. Though tattered and moth-eaten, they’re less dusty than the rest of the cabin, having been somewhat protected. And, when he checks the little sliding door that conceals a small coat closet, he discovers a thick sweatshirt in Garrison gray, the logo embroidered over the heart. It’s huge, soft, and somehow not completely ruined by moths—because, Keith realizes, it hasn’t been here for long.

“_Take it,” Shiro insists, pressing the warm mound of fabric into Keith’s arms. “Just to give me some peace of mind, okay?”_

_They’re heading out on an exceptionally rare night ride, one which Shiro had to get special permission for, because normally they wouldn’t be allowed to go exploring the desert after curfew. In this case, it’s all thanks to a class project Shiro is working on, for which he wants Keith’s assistance. Something to do with estimating the magnitude of a comet._

_Keith thinks it’s a pretty flimsy excuse. Shiro knows Keith doesn’t know that much about magnitude. But it gets them away from the Garrison grounds and out under the stars, which is their favorite place to be. Unfortunately, Keith has neglected to bring enough layers, in Shiro’s opinion. Thus, Shiro has torn off his own sweatshirt and pushed it at Keith. “You need to stay warm too!” Keith protests. “I can just go back and get my jacket.” He doesn’t even need a jacket—he’s always run kind of warm—but if it would keep Shiro from worrying, it’s fine._

“_Nah, I’ve got long sleeves. You’re the one trying to ride a hoverbike in a T-shirt,” Shiro teases. “I promise, if I get cold, I’ll take it back. Deal?”_

“_Deal,” Keith agrees. He hadn’t planned on arguing for long anyway. The sweatshirt is softer than anything he’s ever worn, and it’s warm with Shiro’s body heat and carries the lingering scent of his cologne. When Keith pulls it over his head and tugs the sleeves down his arms, they stop just above the tips of his fingers. He’s surrounded in the comforting warmth of his best friend, and it makes his stomach flip in a way he’s not quite ready to examine. It wouldn’t change anything between them if he did, anyway. Keith is too young, or too complicated, or a combination of the two. And Shiro is... Shiro’s too close to leaving. Kerberos is only months away, approaching like a meteor, and Keith can only watch and wait and prepare for the crater and the devastation._

“_Keep it,” Shiro says, when their excursion ends. “I’ve got a bunch of these anyway. Maybe you’ll need it one day.”_

The numbness has crept all the way into the center of Keith’s soul. He pulls the sweatshirt off its hanger and puts it on, letting his mind wander, imagining that there’s a remnant of Shiro’s scent left even all these months later. It’s not true—there’s no way—but he wants to pretend.

He trudges across the wooden floorboards to the couch, where he curls up on his side under the blankets, the ends of the sweatshirt sleeves pulled all the way over his hands. Somewhere in here, he knows he’s got a stash of canned food, but he’s not the least bit hungry. And there are candles, batteries, a flashlight... a whole catalogue of supplies for basic survival, built up slowly with Shiro’s assistance. He’ll have to make it all last—the candles, hopefully the longest. As a general rule, he doesn’t like fire, and the surrounding land is already drying out as summer approaches.

He’d meant to give the sweatshirt back, to be honest. Even despite Shiro’s original protests. Keith has never liked accepting gifts—there’s too much at stake; too much to risk. People regret giving you things. People resent you accepting them. He’s learned it’s better to refuse, to pay back whenever possible, even when someone insists he doesn’t have to. But somehow he kept forgetting, and Shiro never did ask for it back. The gift was real. And Keith is grateful for it now, even though the soft fabric reminds him of Shiro’s fucking _hugs_, and that’s almost more than he can stand.

* * *

Midway through the next morning, it starts to hit him how absolutely useless it was to come out here. He’s managed to escape being taken back to the home, which is good, but he’s left with nothing and no one around. The shelves of books here are ones he read dozens of times each when he was young, and besides, the sheer mental effort of taking in words on a page seems completely exhausting. The only brand-new reading material here is that damn journal, staring at him from the table. _The words of the dead_, he thinks, and wants to slap himself. Not dead. _Not dead_. Nonetheless, the book is a bomb primed to detonate, and he isn’t ready for the fallout. He’s almost sick with how much he _wishes_ he were ready. He’s never needed Shiro more than now, in this moment where the entire problem is that Shiro is gone.

But he doesn’t even make it to the end of the day before he cracks.

He tells himself he’s just going to hold the journal for a little bit. To sit with it closed in his lap, running careful fingers over the cover. The beat-up edges remind him of how Shiro carried it everywhere he went, throwing it into backpacks and bags, keeping it always at hand if his thoughts became too cluttered.

Maybe just a peek, he thinks. One page can’t hurt. Gently, he opens the cover and flips to the first lined page. It begins about a year before the Kerberos launch, not long into the new year.

_I got Kerberos!! They told me this morning, and I start specialized training for it on Monday. It hasn’t really sunk in yet. I haven’t told anyone else yet either, not even Adam. Not really excited to tell Adam, to be honest. I think he was hoping they’d select someone else and he wouldn’t have to think about it anymore. And Keith... I know he’ll be excited and proud, but I’m gonna be gone for a long time and it will be hard on him. We’re supposed to go out on the bikes in a couple hours. Maybe it’s best if I tell him right away and give him as much time as possible to get used to it._

Keith snaps the cover closed, hot tears springing into his eyes and threatening to spill over. Whatever he’d expected, it hadn’t been _his name_ in Shiro’s handwriting. He hasn’t seen that since the note Shiro wrote to him just before the launch. _Dear Keith_, it had said, _Be good and be great. I’ll see you soon. Love, Shiro._

And his name on the first page, even. Shiro had been thinking of Keith as soon as he got the news about being chosen as pilot. Shiro had wanted to tell him first—and had done so, because they had indeed gone for a ride that day, and Shiro had pulled over at the base of the trail leading to their cliff.

“_I have something important to tell you, but no one else knows yet, so don’t say anything, okay?” Shiro says._

“_Yeah, of course, you know I can keep a secret.” Keith pulls off his helmet and runs his hand through his hair. They’ve been out here awhile, and the sun is already setting._

_Shiro takes a deep breath. “I’m going to pilot the Kerberos mission,” he says, very fast, as if he’s gotta get it out before he stops himself._

“_Holy shit, Shiro!” Keith launches himself at Shiro and squeezes him around the middle. “Congratulations!”_

“_Thanks, buddy.” Shiro hugs him back, leaning down to rest his face against the top of Keith’s head. “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate that. But I hate that it’ll mean leaving you behind, so... I really want to spend as much time with you as possible before I go. Would that be something you’d like?”_

_Keith wants it so bad that it physically aches in his core. He’d hang out with Shiro every single day if he could. “Of course I’d like that,” he whispers. “Shiro, you’re gonna be amazing out there.”_

_Shiro’s arms tighten, and Keith hears a tiny sniff. “Thank you,” he says again. “It really means a lot.”_

In context, Shiro’s intense gratitude makes a lot more sense. Adam _hadn’t_ taken it well when Shiro had told him that evening. Keith’s immediate support and encouragement had probably meant even more to Shiro, who had already been anticipating the fight he’d have to have about it later.

That night, Keith sleeps with the journal beside his head on the couch. It was one of the last things Shiro had touched. It’s the closest Keith can get to him.

There’s plenty of food in the cabin—over time, Shiro had helped him build up a store of canned and dry goods, so Keith isn’t in danger of starvation. But it’s hard to remember to eat when the sensation of hunger comes to him only fleetingly these days.

Time begins to stretch out and fold in on itself like taffy, and it gets harder to keep track of how long he’s been out here. One day, it becomes too much for him, and he works out an estimate of how long it’s been since they announced _pilot error_, and scratches tick marks into the wall with the tip of his knife. This becomes his calendar.

He marks himself, too. Bruises on his thighs, scratches on the inside of his forearms, and nail marks in his palms track the days he spends trying to break out of his mind. The pain keeps him present, centered, focused.

_Patience yields focus_, he thinks. That’s how it’s supposed to work, but patience implies that you’re waiting for something, and there’s nothing to wait for now.

He takes to walking in the desert most days, less to explore it and more to wear himself out so he’ll fall asleep at night, instead of lying there in the dark wondering if Shiro can see the stars wherever he is. If he’s even still alive to see the stars.

Besides, there’s nothing else to do but walk.

Keith knows the rules for safety: bring enough water, avoid the hottest part of the day, and never enter a canyon if there’s a storm anywhere nearby. He knows them, and one by one he starts to break them anyway—not because he feels invincible, but rather because in the grand scheme of things, his life means about as much to him as one of the trillions of grains of sand his boots crush into the ground as he walks. Some of his hikes end with him so overheated that he’s dizzy from it, expelling the contents of his stomach onto the dry earth, his head throbbing like his skull is about to split open. He makes it back to the cabin each time, where he lies down on the couch and waits for the muscle spasms in his legs to ease.

Halfway through the summer, he’s out on one of his walks when he notices low, dark clouds gathering far off in the east. The wind shifts as he watches, and the scent of petrichor lights a warning flare in his mind. He’s miles out into the desert, with two possible routes back to the cabin: a treacherous journey over terrain studded with boulders and sharp rocks, which will at least double the amount of time it takes to cover the distance; or a quick and easy hike back through the narrow canyon by which he came this way.

He eyes the clouds again. It doesn’t matter how far away they are; any storm becomes a threat in this scenario.

The decision hardly matters, though. He lets that mental flare burn itself out, and when peace steals over him once more, he walks into the mouth of the canyon.

It’s quiet in here, only the echoes of his crunching footsteps keeping him company. The walls of the canyon stretch up so high, there’s only a narrow strip of blue sky above.

He never even hears thunder before the water comes. At first it’s a slow, spreading pool under his feet, but he knows what it signals, and he speeds up. He’s about three-quarters of the way through the canyon at this point, and he thinks he remembers a rock ledge a little ways ahead—or has he already passed it? The smooth, undulating walls of the canyon give very little in the way of landmarks. Should he turn and run back in hopes of finding safety? Or press on and hope his memory is correct?

Better away from the flood than toward it, he decides, and hurries forward as the water rises higher. He nearly slips and falls once, catching himself on his hands, and the power he senses as the water rushes past his arms—it could take him in a moment, if it gets any stronger.

Soon it’s up to his ankles, the current already dragging him off-balance, when he rounds a curve and sees the ledge just up ahead. He is sprinting now, splashing through the slick mud that sucks at his feet, barely noticing his pounding heart and burning lungs.

He makes it. He reaches the rough slanting stone that leads to the ledge, and he scrambles up it, wet shoes skidding, and finally hauls himself to relative safety. The ledge is long and wide enough that he can lie down; and he does, the last of his adrenaline-spiked energy evaporating. Hands over his face, he lies there trembling, listening to the water as it crescendoes into a roar.

Why _did_ he go into the canyon? he wonders. He _knows _better. Exhausted and soaked, he tries to figure it out, but the only explanation he lands on is that he just doesn’t care. He’d hardly even felt afraid out there in the water, even knowing it could strike and kill him at any moment. But all he had felt was an eerie calm; a sense that _what will be, will be_, and that the thought of his own demise didn’t particularly horrify him. He should worry, he thinks. He should worry that dying doesn’t scare him in the way it used to. He should worry that no one knows where he is or what he’s doing; that no one would find him for days or weeks if anything were to happen to him.

_Happen to him_. That’s how he’s been thinking of it, but that’s not quite what’s going on, is it? He knows what this is now, and maybe he’s an idiot for not thinking of it sooner, but it hadn’t take the shape of what he had been taught. He’d always imagined the feeling would be like stepping in front of a train, then jumping away at the last moment. Instead, it’s more like there are trains everywhere, bearing down on him from all directions, but he’s just walking with his head down. Taking his chances.

This state of mind has crept up on him just like the flash flood, he realizes. Slowly at first, something that could be easy to ignore; then stronger, until it began to wash away the foundations within him. Now he’s trapped above raging water, unable to escape until it drains away. All he can do is wait and wonder whether it will rise higher and consume him.

* * *

The land dries up after the distant storm, but now that he’s recognized his thoughts for what they are, they come in a constant deluge, only broken by sleep.

He sleeps a lot, and at strange hours. Often he’ll wake before the sunrise and sits in the dark with his skin buzzing so bad he wishes he could peel it off. Not long after dawn, exhaustion will overtake him, and the next time he awakens, it’ll be nearly evening. He’ll drag himself off the couch, stare at the array of food inside the kitchen cupboard for awhile, and finally select something at random. Mostly he’s eating right out of the cans. Saves having to do dishes.

Whenever he feels especially lonely, he reads another journal entry. Mostly it’s just Shiro recording his day-to-day activities—_aced the flight exam_, _went out with Adam last night_, that sort of thing. Occasionally there’s a reference to something he did with Keith, and these are like faint falling stars, sparking bright and magical on the page, but vanishing into nothing afterward.

The journal isn’t entirely comforting, because Shiro’s health had begun to worsen partway through the year. _Bad day_, Shiro had written, on a page about four months into the journal. And nothing else. On the following page: _They said my numbers are too low. Increasing meds. Side effects = exhausting. Adam is too patient—seems to think I will stay here if it gets bad enough. I would rather die in space than never go up there again. Either way I’m dying, right? So why not go?_

_Keith came over to the apartment this afternoon. Didn’t tell him about The Numbers. Adam had classes all afternoon so K and I watched a really old movie—the kind they used to record on film—and made fun of the special effects. Which were probably excellent fifty years ago! I guess they’ll make fun of ours in another fifty years. Too bad I won’t be here to do it myself, because according to K, I am hilarious._

He remembers that day. Shiro had been so quiet, and moved so slowly, as if his whole body ached. Keith hadn’t known Shiro’s illness had been giving him trouble—he’d just figured Shiro had stayed up too late the night before or had a cold or something. But he remembers curling up on the couch next to Shiro, getting closer than usual, and maybe Shiro had let him because he needed the comfort as much as Keith did. They’d spent the afternoon laughing and talking. Keith doesn’t remember what they talked about—nothing that seemed important at the time, but maybe that’s because Shiro wanted to stay as far away from dark topics as possible. By the state of the journal, Shiro’s life at that time was mainly dark topics, aside from his friendship with Keith.

_I would rather die in space_. Well, Shiro might have just gotten his wish, which is completely horrible at the same time as it’s kind of funny—the exact kind of thing Shiro would have laughed at, in fact.

Had Adam ever read this journal after Shiro disappeared? Keith finds it hard to imagine he didn’t, but god, it must have hurt so much more than it helped. Shiro had written about Adam with so much love and hope—but so much anger and frustration, too. Things he probably put down on a page so that he _wouldn’t_ say them to Adam.

* * *

Keith is in the middle of one of his so-called “naps” (that last for six or seven hours at a time, but who’s counting?) when someone knocks on the door, jolting him awake. His first thought is: _how did I fuck up?_ He’s kept the outside of the cabin carefully inconspicuous; there’s nothing to make it appear that anyone is actively living here. There should be no reason for anyone to knock. Barefoot, he pads across the wooden floorboards, avoiding the squeakiest patches, until he can peer out the peephole in the door.

There’s no one there—the porch is empty. Frowning, he eases the door open an inch to get a better look—and jerks back when he sees the short girl standing there. So short he couldn’t see her through the peephole.

“Hi, Katie.”

“Hey, Keith.”

“I have a lot of questions for you, but the first one is, how exactly did you find me?”

“I have my methods. Don’t worry, I’m not gonna tell anyone I saw you. I just wanted to talk to you, because you’re the only one who believes me about this stuff. Can I come in?” She’s already ducking under his arm and into the cabin as she says it.

He grits his teeth and follows her, waiting for her to comment on the state of the place. Empty cans are scattered around the couch on the floor. The dust he’d half-heartedly cleaned up in the beginning has returned with a vengeance. He’s been doing his laundry in town, rationing out his leftover cash for quarters, but right now all the clean clothes are piled on one end of the table, unfolded. He can see Katie taking in everything with sharp eyes and maybe a hint of worry in her gaze, but she doesn’t say a word about it.

Instead she makes herself comfortable on the couch, where she reaches into her backpack and pulls out a manila folder thick with printer paper. “I went low-tech for you,” she says. “Figured you wouldn’t have a datapad handy.”

“Thanks.” He thinks.

“Okay, look here. When I checked out Iverson’s records, I found certain discrepancies that lead me to believe my dad and Matt and Shiro aren’t dead like they said.”

“You think there’s a cover-up?”

“I don’t think they’re that smart.” Katie rolls her eyes. “As far as I can tell, they believe their interpretation of the evidence. The final data sent by the ship showed a rapidly increasing internal temperature, which they assumed was a fire or explosion caused by a crash. It’s just... the data sent by the crew’s _suits_ doesn’t match. And it cuts out long after the end of the ship data. I don’t think they were _on_ the ship when it was destroyed.”

Keith slides down to the floor, wrapping his arms around his knees and leaning against the wall. He closes his eyes. “It’s a good theory. But all it means is that maybe they died outside the ship instead. Life support systems only last so long.”

“That’s the thing,” Katie says. “Before the data stream ends, their position moves—_off Kerberos_, Keith. Really _far_ off Kerberos. The stream only cuts out when the distance between us and them became too great. The ship was already gone, based on the numbers. The structure wouldn’t have survived a fire like that. So how do you imagine they escaped the moon’s orbit? By jumping really high?” Her tone does not indicate faith in her family’s potentially-superhuman jumping abilities.

“You think they were—”

“Kidnapped.”

“By—”

“Aliens, yeah.”

“That is a really out-there idea, I have to tell you.”

“I know, but it’s the only one that fits all the facts so far. There might be other explanations that I haven’t found yet, I know that. But I don’t want to disregard this one yet. I’m just saying—I haven’t found proof of their _deaths_, so there is a chance they are alive.”

Impossibly, considering this information causes Keith to feel even more hopeless. “What do you plan to do with this, anyway? It’s not like they’re not gonna let you take a ship out there to go look. They don’t think there’s anything to look _for_.”

“I don’t know yet,” she says. “I know they stopped looking. I just wanted to show you what I found.” She takes a deep breath. “I’ll have to come up with a plan, I guess.”

“Let me know if you do.” He doesn’t mean for it to come out as dry as it does, but her expression crumples and she starts shoving papers back into her bag, not looking at him now.

“I’m gonna go. Nice seeing you, Keith.”

“Yeah, Katie. Same to you.”

“Hey, one more thing—” She pulls a small notebook out of her bag, scribbles down an address and phone number, and passes it to him. “This is my mom’s cell number and our address. If you ever need anything, I know she’d want to help you. The library in town lets you make free phone calls from their holoscreens.”

“Sure thing,” he says. By the sad twist to her smile, he guesses she knows he’s lying, but the thought was nice nonetheless.

* * *

The journal turns ever darker. Keith’s memories of Shiro during that summer are of a bright smile and soft gray eyes crinkling with laughter; of trips to the town swimming pool, the movie theater, the botanical gardens, and more. It was as if Shiro had wanted to show Keith every fun summer thing he’d missed out on as a foster kid, and to impart as much wisdom as possible besides. Sometimes Shiro had to cancel due to being “tired,” but he always rescheduled as soon as possible. Keith had never guessed that in his spare time, Shiro was copying down lines of centuries-old poetry and philosophy—words with which to comfort himself.

_This is the dead land_  
_This is cactus land_  
_Here the stone images_  
_Are raised, here they receive_  
_The supplication of a dead man's hand  
_ _Under the twinkle of a fading star._

_Eliot gets it, _Shiro had written underneath. _A dead land for a dead man. I feel trapped sometimes—not just in my body, but between life and death. I am waiting to die, but that’s still a long ways off, though not as long as I wish it were. In the meantime, I have no choice but to live, to run after all my dreams, chasing the stars even as they die out one by one._

Keith goes out that night to look at the stars. Shiro’s gentle voice comes to his mind: “_Find Cassiopeia—she’s in her chair, right there, see?”_

“_I don’t see a chair,” Keith says, squinting up at the jagged line of the constellation. “That is a W if it’s anything.”_

“_Don’t let her hear you talk like that, man.” Shiro bumps his shoulder into Keith’s. “She might come down here.”_

“_Yeah, yeah... I thought you were gonna show me a galaxy, though.”_

“_I’m getting there, have some patience. All right. See how the chair—the W, if it makes you happy—has a deeper ‘V’ on one end? That’s like an arrow. Follow it over—” Shiro’s finger traces an invisible line in the sky. “And you’ll find Andromeda. Right there, see?”_

“_That little smudge?” Keith wrinkles his nose. “It doesn’t look much like a galaxy.”_

“_That’s our next-door neighbor. One day she’s gonna crash into us, probably. By then, you and I will be long gone, but—” Shiro whistles, low and soft. “What a fireworks show that’ll be.”_

Andromeda is there tonight, a dim blurry patch among the stars. If he looked all night, Keith could probably find every stellar wonder Shiro ever showed him, one by one.

What he can’t see, and the only thing he wishes he could, is Kerberos. And yet he has no choice but to live, even as his hopes die.

He can’t help wondering what would happen to his stuff if he died. Not that there’s much of it, but—he doesn’t want just _anyone_ to have his knife, for instance. Maybe he could bury it in a desert cave, or package it up and mail it to Katie, along with the journal and his photos of Shiro. She’d figure out something to do with them, or some way to keep them safe. She’s probably the only one who’d care enough to try.

The weather begins to cool as summer draws to a close. The mood of the journal becomes a little brighter: Shiro writes about a new treatment plan that has reduced his symptoms to almost nothing—it’s one he can easily continue even in space, making it that much less likely that he’d be kicked off the mission.

“_We are star stuff which has taken its destiny into its own hands.”_

_I think Sagan would be happy to know his words are as timeless now as they were in the 21st century. It’s nice to think about—the atoms that make up my body were born in space, and I’m returning to space in a few months. Ashes to ashes, stars to stars. Matt didn’t think that was very clever when I said it, but I disagree. Anyway, I like the idea of it, that no matter what happens to me, I’ll be part of the universe until the end of time._

Keith would like to feel relieved that Shiro had been so at peace with his eventual fate, but seeing Shiro speak so casually about his upcoming death makes his stomach twist into knots. Shiro may have accepted it, but Keith sure hadn’t. And still hasn’t.

He turns the page, and the bottom drops out of his heart as a photo slips free from between the pages and into his lap. It’s of Shiro and Keith together, outdoors on some distant evening, the lighting dim, their expressions difficult to make out. There’s some kind of orange light off to the side—a campfire, perhaps. Keith doesn’t even remember this photo being taken, but he remembers the moment that it has recorded. Shiro’s arm is around his shoulders, and Shiro’s face is turned toward him. Keith is laughing—he doesn’t know what Shiro had just said; maybe it wasn’t even something funny, but he would have loved hearing Shiro’s voice so close to his ear, saying something just for Keith to hear. Of course it would have made him smile helplessly.

He brings the photo closer to his eyes, squinting, trying to see the details. Shiro is grinning from ear to ear, gazing at Keith...adoringly, maybe. Keith is looking straight ahead in the photo, not at Shiro, so he wouldn’t have seen the look on Shiro’s face. It’s from a camping trip the two of them took with Adam last fall, so Adam must have taken the photo. Keith wonders what Adam saw in this photo. Whether he liked it. Why it’s in Shiro’s journal and not in Adam’s photo album. Maybe it was an unimportant photo for Adam. But why did Shiro save it?

He examines the pages where the photo was tucked, wondering if there’s some kind of secret message hidden amongst the words and the photo together.

_Went camping with A & K. Stayed up late talking to K. He’s gonna be great one day—he already is. He’s amazing and has no idea. It’s killing me that he doesn’t know. All the time I want to tell him, but I know he thinks I’m just exaggerating. Making it up. One day I’m gonna make him believe it, I hope. Can’t wait to see what he does with his life._

Keith sets the journal down, after putting the photo back between its pages, where it belongs. _Killing me_, he thinks. _It’s killing me_...

There’s a small notepad on the table that he found in one of his searches for useful supplies, along with a stub of a pencil. Keith grabs it and scribbles a note on the pad. He doesn’t have an idea in mind, exactly—just that Shiro’s words need a response, and Keith can’t give him one, and this is the only thing that seems like it can be done.

_It’s killing me when you’re away_. Yeah, that describes it well enough. He rips the sheet off the pad and gets up, tacking it to the corkboard with his other ephemera. He’s never been good at writing whole letters, but he wishes he could write one for Shiro. Roll it up tight, cork it into a bottle, and—launch it into space where maybe it’ll find Shiro somehow. Sure, it’s not possible, but Keith’s getting used to wishing for impossible things.

That photo is gonna haunt him. He’s never seen Shiro look at him like that before. He’d had no idea that Shiro had _ever _looked at him like that, and now that he knows, he won’t be able to get it out of his mind. Shiro had been looking at him the way he looked at Adam sometimes, back before things went sour between them. There’s a word for that look.

_Loverboy_, Keith thinks. His smile is bitter, but he thinks maybe James had been closer to the truth than either of them realized.

He writes more notes to Shiro after that. Scraps of half-remembered song lyrics, little sketches of desert plants, lines of poetry that probably wouldn’t pass a fifth-grade English class, but who cares. Shiro wouldn’t care. Shiro would read and treasure all of it. Shiro had always taught him to value whatever was in his heart, no matter how messy and complicated and difficult to put into words it was.

* * *

Maybe it’s the weather turning gentle and enticing, after the hell of a desert summer, but Keith has more energy now than he’s felt in months. It’s enough that he starts fixing up his dad’s old hoverbike, hidden for all this time in the big shed connected to the cabin, and somehow still in near-perfect condition. She just needs a little TLC and an energy refill from the cabin’s solar generator.

The first time he takes her out, it’s in the evening so he won’t be seen, and he rides slowly because his body has to remember how this feels, and he needs to test her capabilities anyway. After a few more outings, though—it’s like riding any _other_ bike, and soon he’s zipping through narrow canyons and around tight bends as if he’d been riding every day of his life.

One evening, he comes across the path that leads to his and Shiro’s cliff. He slows down, idling at the entry to it, biting his lip and considering. He still knows just how to do it.

Yeah, he could totally do it.

Without a second thought, he opens up the throttle and speeds forward. He yells long and loud, voice torn away by the wind whipping past him. It’s the first real sound he’s made in months.

The steep slopes and low overhangs aren’t a problem. Stone doesn’t change much inside of a year, and this route is engraved into his bones. He lets his body lead the flight, and for a few miraculous moments, he remembers what joy feels like. It surges through him, a transfusion of life into his veins, and he’s ready, he’s so ready for this—

“_Come on, catch up!” Shiro cries over his shoulder. Keith tears after him, and one after another, they shoot over the edge of the cliff._

The edge of the cliff is seconds away. His vision is blurring with tears, but he only increases his speed. Go too slow and he won’t have enough momentum. He can do this. He can do this.

The ground is rushing up to meet him. His eyes sting so bad he can barely keep them open, but there’s no stopping in the middle of a dive like this. Finish it or die.

He pulls up, just this side of too late, hearing the slightest, faintest scrape of the tail of the bike tilting down too far and bumping the ground.

It’s enough to send him spinning, and the bike nearly throws him off before he gets it under control again and slows down. Panting, he shuts off the engine and collapses forward onto the handlebars.

“I didn’t mean to,” he whispers, but he wishes he could be sure that he’s telling the truth.

When he gets home, still shaking from the close call, it occurs to him to count the marks on the wall. If his math is right—

“Damn,” he says. “Happy birthday to me.”

The journal entries are coming more and more frequently now—almost an entry per day, maybe because Shiro has more and more to sort out in his mind. And it turns out that there’s one for today, in fact.

_Adam and I really got into it this morning, which probably would have ruined the day if not for seeing Keith later. More of that “How important am I to you” shit. I don’t know, I’m only looking at rings every other week, Adam, how important do you think? But I probably shouldn’t be looking. He’s clearly still waiting for me to drop out of the mission, and I’m not going to, so... not sure where that leaves us._

_But it was Keith’s birthday today, so we all went out to that little diner in town tonight, because they give you free dessert on your birthday and Keith loves their apple pie a la mode. Adam and me and Keith all squeezed into one side of the booth, which was really not meant to hold three people. Matt was on the other with his sister Katie, who’s visiting the base for a few days, and Keith didn’t mind if she tagged along. He’s sweet like that—he doesn’t know Katie that well, but he said she doesn’t have many months left to hang out with Matt, so he didn’t want to take away any of her time with him._

_I have perceiv’d that to be with those I like is enough,_  
_To stop in company with the rest at evening is enough,  
_ _To be surrounded by beautiful, curious, breathing, laughing flesh is enough..._

_I wish that were enough for me, because goodness knows I don’t lack for “those I like,” and some of them are very beautiful, even when maybe they shouldn’t seem so beautiful to me. But I can’t stop myself from feeling, just like I can’t stop myself from dreaming of this mission. My heart has a habit of pulling me in two directions, and there’s nothing I can do about that._

There are—several different ways Keith could read those words. Some of them, he doesn’t dare hope they could be true. So it doesn’t bear wondering about.

It takes a long time for him to fall asleep that night. Something warm and wanting has lodged itself in his core, wrapped in the grief that still lingers there. The blankets are suddenly too heavy and hot; he tosses them to the floor. Then, finally, sleep claims him.

* * *

He shouldn’t be doing this. He shouldn’t be lying on the couch with his sweatpants shoved down past his hips, a picture of Shiro clutched in his left hand and his right jammed into his underwear. Like most of the things that get Keith into trouble, he didn’t think this through first.

It hadn’t felt like a conscious decision, any more than water decides to pour itself over a waterfall. He’d merely reached a tipping point...and continued past it. His intention had been to read a little of the journal, flip through his photographs, and reminisce over a mug of tea before going to sleep. But that weird curl of warmth had returned, and he’d gone with the flow.

He hasn’t jerked off in more than a perfunctory fashion since before Shiro disappeared—only when his body demanded it (infrequently), and only with blank thoughts. Desire and fantasy left him months ago, and the act has become a boring, mindless routine, much like brushing his teeth or clipping his nails: has to be done to care for himself; doesn’t mean he’s getting a kick out of it.

This time is different, though. Inside him is a spreading brushfire, sparked by the sight of Shiro’s bare chest gleaming with sweat, and carried further and higher by the storm of Keith’s longing. He’s wearing Shiro’s sweatshirt, which he usually sleeps in anyway, but in this case it’s just another detail stoking the flames.

He’d never even allowed himself to do this at the Garrison—all thoughts of Shiro (because of course there had been thoughts of Shiro) were to be pushed out of his mind, substituted with nameless, faceless replacements, so as not to mar the smooth surface of their friendship.

_I don’t think A. and I are gonna make it_, the journal had said this evening. _That’s the first time I’m saying that in words, but I’ve been thinking about it for awhile. I don’t know which one of us is going to end it, though._

_We fucked tonight, and it was different this time. We’ve been angry for days on end, but for some reason, when he got home from work, I couldn’t keep my hands off him. He hasn’t wanted me to touch him for awhile, but he wanted it tonight. The whole time I was wondering, “Is this the last time? The last time he makes me come, the last time I see him come, the last time we are inside each other...” In the moment, I thought I was fine with it. He fell asleep afterward, and then I cried. Quietly, so he wouldn’t hear, because I didn’t want to explain what was wrong. I didn’t know I was going to cry. As furious and hurt as I am, this mess is breaking my heart._

_There will be other last times with him. I’m sure of it now. The launch date has been set, and that will be the date we launch our relationship into a bonfire and let it all burn down. If not sooner._

_It was hot. That’s the weird part. Maybe I shouldn’t be sleeping with him, knowing it’s going to end any day now. But he knows exactly what to do to me. I don’t have that with anyone else. I don’t know if I’ll ever want it with anyone else._

This is wrong. This is a betrayal. He’s thinking about Shiro coming apart in Adam’s hands. Wondering what Adam knew to do to him. Wondering what Shiro might do to _Keith_. If he’d ever touch Keith.

He shouldn’t be doing this, but he doesn’t stop. When he spills into his hand, Shiro’s name on his lips in shattered syllables, he’s struck with a tidal wave of renewed agony.

It isn’t _fair_. Shiro had been forced to choose between his passion for space exploration and his passion for Adam. Adam had been forced to choose between a breakup and a distance he didn’t believe he could bear. And Keith?

Keith never got a say in any of this. If he’d been in Adam’s position—well, he would have made a different choice, because he’s a different person. What he feels toward Adam at this point is a mix of distaste and grudging empathy: he understands that Adam needed someone who’s different from Shiro, but he will never understand wanting to give up on Shiro.

He wipes his hand on his thigh, pulls his sweatpants up, and breaks. Turning onto his side, he presses his face into a musty throw pillow and sobs. Shiro had always been there for Keith, and now he’s gone. Shiro was everything; a best friend; a guiding light; and the world is so much darker without him. Shiro was _beautiful, curious, breathing, laughing flesh_, and now he may not even be that much. He could be stardust once again, and Keith might never know for sure what happened. It’s just not fucking fair.

* * *

In the journal, Shiro has scrawled a huge black X on a day in the second week of December, with nothing else to accompany it. The explanation appears on the following day:

_So._

_We broke up._

_We talked about it first, which was weird. I’ve never done that before. I’ve never had it be so horribly _mutual. _We sat down on the sofa in our apartment, and I was kind of thinking we were just gonna watch some TV, but then it all just started coming out, like an infected wound breaking open. There was no yelling. Actually, it was the nicest we’ve been to each other in awhile. Maybe trying to save our relationship actually made it worse._

_He asked if I wanted to wait till after the holidays to decide. Part of me wanted to say yes—to put it off as far in the future as possible, just to hold on a bit longer. But I’ve known for awhile that there was nothing left to hold on to, and how much would it suck to visit his family for Christmas, and go to our friends’ party for New Year’s, and _then_ have to tell everyone that we broke up?_

_Which is basically what I said to him, and he said “You’re right,” which is not something he has said to me in awhile._

_Then I said, “Is it over?”_

_He said, “I think it is.”_

_We both cried then. We held each other, and we both apologized, and it wasn’t anything like I thought it would be. I’m not sure if it was better or worse than I expected. Would I feel better if I could hate him? Because I don’t, but I don’t miss him, either. Most of what I feel is relief._

_He’s got a friend he’s going to stay with until the launch, and then he’ll take over the apartment, since I won’t be needing it anymore. Ha ha._

_I feel like I’m going to throw up._

On Christmas last year, Keith had gone over to Shiro’s place, where Shiro had given Keith a small flat box, wrapped in red paper with a white bow stuck on top. Keith had traded Shiro a big brown paper bag, having opted to spend his limited funds only on what was inside it.

_As Keith gasps over the fingerless leather gloves inside the box, Shiro stares at the model spaceship kit he’d pulled out of the bag. “Keith... this is perfect,” he says. “I’m going to start on it today.”_

“_I can’t believe you got these for me!” Keith is already pulling on the gloves. “How’d you even know I wanted them?”_

“_Saw you looking at them in the window of that shop every time we went into town, that’s all. You like ‘em?”_

“_I’m never ever taking them off,” Keith declares._

And he hasn’t. They’re worn soft now, as comfortable as a second skin; he only removes them to clean and oil the leather.

Shiro had sat right down in the middle of the floor, crosslegged like a little kid, and torn open the tape holding the model kit closed. He’d been serious about working on it that very day, though it had taken around a week before he had enough time to finish it.

Now, Keith realizes, that kit had probably distracted Shiro during a really hard time in his life. It had been a more perfect gift than he’d even known.

If only he had something to distract himself with now.

As if something out there heard him wishing, the dreams begin that night. The first one is only blackness all around him, with a faint sound filtering to him from far away—it reminds him of a mountain lion’s scream, but much deeper. More of a—

It clicks: he’s seen lions at a zoo before, and they sounded just like that when they roared. This one isn’t a caged lion, though. It’s out there in the dark somewhere, but before he can become afraid of it, he senses that it isn’t stalking him. Unlike the rest of the desert, it means him no harm. But it does want him to come find it—_right now_.

_How? _he calls to it. _I don’t know where you are!_

_Seek within the dark places, Paladin_, it growls, closer now. _You must come to me._ _I cannot save him without you._

_Save who? _he wants to know, but just then he wakes up, an abrupt shift from dreaming into wakefulness. Early sunlight streams through the faded curtains above the couch. For the first time since he arrived here, he slept through the entire night, and he didn’t even have any nightmares.

The lion sticks in the back of his mind all through the next day, but instead of causing him anxiety or irritation, the echoes of its voice anchor him. The feeling is so bizarre that he’s not able to pinpoint exactly what it is until it’s almost nightfall: he wants to be alive. _Actually _wants to, instead of just clinging to existence until it finally ends. He knows it has to do with his dream, and so he’s completely aware this could be a temporary effect. Still, he plans to enjoy it while it lasts.

The dreams come every night after that. Each time, the lion moves a little closer. Each time, a little more of the darkness fades into dim light. He’ll see her soon—because she’s a _she_, he knows now, a powerful and mystical lioness, waiting for him.

She shows him Shiro in the dreams, too—just glimpses, as if seen through a crack in a doorway. In those parts of the dreams, the light melts into a dark violet glow, and there’s the sound of boots on metal, and sometimes Keith hears screams. Shiro is thin and hungry and scared, and so much sicker than he’s ever been in his life.

_He will not give up on himself_, the lion tells Keith. _Find me, Paladin. Find me and I will help you find him._

“I could be imagining all of this,” he reminds himself sternly. “Maybe I ate some bad...prickly pear, I don’t know, are there hallucinogenic prickly pears?” He doesn’t think so. But there are a myriad of more reasonable explanations than “there is literally a magic lion in the desert, and it talks to Keith in his dreams.”

Finally, on a crisp, bright day of the new year, he packs himself a lunch. He brings plenty of water and extra layers, and keeps a close eye on the weather as he walks.

“Seek within the dark places,” he mutters to himself. “Dark places... caves, maybe?”

He hasn’t the faintest idea where to begin. The surrounding desert is littered with caves, many of which he wouldn’t want to enter without an experienced guide and an emergency plan. Over several weeks, he tries the closest, safest ones that he’s already found, but all of them are silent and lion-free. But something tells him he’s on the right track, even if it feels like he’s walking in circles. There’s an energy out here, faint but impossible to ignore—a frisson under his skin that leaves goosebumps in his wake; a hook behind his breastbone tugging him into the desert every morning.

As he searches, the journal carries him forward on the current of Shiro’s words. The entries are shorter in the final days before the launch—Shiro’s schedule had been packed to bursting with classes and training runs, and he’d barely had time to eat or sleep, though he still made room for Keith for at least a few minutes out of every day.

Keith’s name appears in more of the entries, too—always when Shiro seemed to be in a particularly good mood. It occurs to him that maybe Keith himself had been the cause of Shiro’s little moments of joy, but that seems rather far-fetched, not to mention arrogant. Still. It’s good to see that Shiro had been in such high spirits as the launch day approached, despite the emotional rollercoaster of the previous months.

Finally, he reaches the last entry. It’s several pages long, written the night before the launch, and filled with a list of Shiro’s fears about the mission—as if by spilling them onto the page, he could exorcise them from his mind. Toward the end of it, the tone shifts, and what Keith reads there nearly makes him drop the journal.

_What I haven’t said this whole time—what I’ve been avoiding, because it was never the right moment and certainly isn’t now—is that I love him. I love Keith. I don’t know exactly when that happened, and maybe it doesn’t matter now. Maybe it never will. But I wanted to say it on paper one time before I go._

_I hope he’ll be all right. He’s one of the bravest people I know, and I know he’s meant for great things. I want to see him when I come home._

_God, I hope I come home._

The journal ends there, with a half-dozen pages left blank.

It’s a long time before Keith manages to relax his grip on the journal and set it down on the table. He slumps back against the couch cushions, at a loss for how to process this information. Shiro had loved him. _Still_ loves him, maybe, if he is alive like the lion claims. It doesn’t seem possible, but—it’s right there on the page in Shiro’s writing. The part of Keith that’s always doubting says, _Maybe he loves you differently than you love him._ Keith shoves that thought away—who cares? Whatever love Shiro has for him, it’s enough.

“I’ll find you,” Keith promises, voice firm in the empty, silent air of the cabin. “Whatever it takes.”

* * *

Ironically, the day Keith comes closest to dying is a day he isn’t even wishing it would happen. He’s just out on one of his usual hikes, enjoying the cool morning air and sunlight on his bare arms, and the still-mysterious sensation of that tingling energy. 

And then, he hears it: a dry buzz from ground level, much too close to him. He should feel terror right now—a rapid pulse, the desire to run away, _anything_. But once again, he’s swallowed up in the same cold, creeping numbness that’s been weighing him down for months like cement slowly drying around his limbs. He is becoming a fearless feelingless thing, a permanent memorial to someone he once was and may never be again. It’s seeming less and less likely that he will ever break out of this paralyzing shell. His very cells are turning to stone.

The sound comes again, and finally he catches sight of its source—a thick brown sinuous body curled up in a patch of sunlight next to a boulder, not many paces off the thin line of the deer trail he’s been walking along. “There you are,” he mouths. His feet won’t move, but he doesn’t perceive any fear within himself. Rather, an impulse rises in his mind like a upwelling of cold, dark, poisonous water from the depths of a peaceful lake. _Take another step_, it coaxes. _And then another. Go to it and think of nothing and become nothing and then you will feel nothing forever._

Quietly, gently, the thing in his brain has taken root and spread its tendrils out like a parasite, infecting every neuron. His synapses fire in its service now. And he should want to fight it, but he is so tired.

Yet still he does not move—neither forward nor backward, while the spreading darkness inside his head wrestles with the drive to save himself. He gives his body over as a battleground, lifting up and out of himself, a mere observer as their forces collide in savage war. He could be dreaming, for how detached he feels. Or he’s having a moment of astral projection. That idea is almost funny—if only he _could_, then he could throw his spirit out into space and search until he found _Shiro’s_ spirit.

The sharp, broken bark of laughter he makes at the thought of it—this is what snaps him brutally back into his own skin, muscle and bone clamping shut on his soul, making him mortal once more.

Death is only a few short strides away, closer than it has come in the past year. And he _knows_ now: while he’s been out here in the silence, choking on his grief, his own mind has been trying to kill him. The heat exhaustion, the flash flood, the near-failure of a cliff jump—and now the rattlesnake.

It would hurt. He’s heard the stories of their bites; how even if you didn’t die, you’d probably want to, because of how unbearable the pain would be. How it could take weeks to recover fully. All the other ways would probably have hurt less, but this is where his luck has led him. He doesn’t care if he lives or dies, and right now, dying seems a far simpler option. What is he waiting for, anyway? Shiro is gone and there’s no way for Keith to get him back. The Garrison stopped looking for Shiro long ago. Magic dreams are nothing more than a childish fantasy. Keith has turned eighteen and is free of the system and he is still completely, utterly alone. So what’s the fucking _point_?

_You can’t give up on yourself._

The voice rings out in his mind like a recording, clearer than he’s been able to recall it this entire time: Shiro’s voice, loving and warm and the very last thing Keith wants to deal with right now. He’s got a decision to make and it’s no use thinking about how disappointed Shiro would be if he were to choose one of his two options. Shiro isn’t here to be disappointed. It doesn’t matter. Nothing has mattered in _months._ Keith has just been wasting time, waiting for the inevitable.

There’s a low rumble out to the east. His head jolts up to look. Darkness is rolling in—thick murderous clouds already crackling with lightning, and moving fast. When he snaps his gaze back to the boulder, the snake is gone. Wildly he looks around, as if maybe it’s snuck toward him, but there’s nothing but barren desert as far as he can see. It must have fled when his attention was turned. Slipped into a burrow or crevice or something. The opportunity is lost now.

_Opportunity_, he thinks, biting down on a bitter grin. That’s how far down the hole he’s fallen, huh? His goal was once the heights of space; now he’s staring down an early grave. Anger flickers in him like lightning—a feeling he remembers from long ago; an emotion that hasn’t visited him in some time. But now, like the final beats of a heart frantic to preserve itself, rage pounds against the inside of his chest. How fucking dare—

He has nowhere to aim it. Nothing to be angry at except himself. No, not himself—at the pain that led him to this bleak and lifeless state. What Shiro would have wanted barely matters anymore—but _Keith_ still wants.

It would have looked like an accident—that is, if they’d even found him. He would have died alone, invisible, far away from anyone who cared, and no one deserves that. Shiro didn’t deserve it. So maybe, just maybe, neither does Keith.

The light grows dim and the first fat raindrops spatter on his bare arms. Hands over his face, he sinks to his knees on the dusty earth as it turns to mud beneath him. “I’m here,” he whispers.

In the half-light, black and gray and white shrouds whipping across the sky, Keith cries and he screams and he laughs—his body electric and electrified. Lightning dances among the clouds, and Keith stands up and dances among the raindrops, until he’s soaked, until he can’t tell his tears from the rain.

The desert summons him. Voiceless, it calls to him; without touching him, it pulls him closer to its heart. Something’s out there. Something wants to be found. He should feel crazy, shouldn’t he? Prophets in the desert had thoughts like this, and they were often starving or half-dead of thirst. But he isn’t dying—not anymore. Whatever was decaying within him is falling away, and in its place grows fresh, frail, tender life. The walls around his spirit have crumbled into wet and fertile mud, like the sodden, sandy earth that squishes between his toes as he whirls and howls in the gray sunshine of a thunderous day.

* * *

Back at the cabin, his life starts over with a map he finds rolled up in a drawer, held closed by an aging rubber band that snaps as soon as it’s stretched. Upon spreading the map out on the floor, he immediately recognizes the features of the surrounding desert. He finds a little box of thumbtacks in the same drawer and pins the map to the wall. Maybe it’ll give him some ideas for where to search next.

[[click to view art by Luna White - sfw]](https://twitter.com/ImaginationCubd/status/1176188419355152384)

When the rain stops the next day, he’s ready to go. He searched the shack more thoroughly after discovering the map, and stumbled upon treasure: an older model of an instant camera, and a few packs of film—miraculously unexpired. He doesn’t remember his father being into photography, so the next likely culprit is Shiro, though Keith can’t be certain whether Shiro forgot the camera one day or left it for Keith to find later. Either way, there’s a great deal he intends to document with it.

The corkboard becomes home base. The map goes up in the center, surrounded by old and new photos, sketches of cave layouts and curious rock formations, and his notes to Shiro. The earth keeps turning, dawn into dusk into dawn; each day brings him a new scrap of information. He works his way through each section of the map, closing in on the source of the strange energy. It’s the first time in months that he’s felt _interested_ in something. He supposes it’s a sort of obsession, but at least it’s kind to him—a new subject to focus on, taking up the space left by previous, darker thoughts.

_Hurry_, the lion whispers to him, even in daylight now. _Soon he will come, and they will come too._ A sick twist of fear invades him—not his, but the lion’s. He asks _who_ is coming, but she shies away, refusing to answer.

He recognizes her home when he finds it, though. Her excitement flares wild and bright when he steps into the cave with the lions carved into its walls. There are dozens of them, ancient geometric pictures scattered from floor to ceiling. “Who made these?” he wonders aloud. His voice echoes deep into the cavern, returning bent and faded. She doesn’t answer that question, either.

* * *

Painstakingly, Keith pieces together the clues left by unknown hands in the cave of lions. Then, one day, he steps back to look at his corkboard from across the room—and he gets it.

Something’s coming. _Tomorrow night._

He doesn’t completely believe it. This is some “world’s gonna end next Thursday at nine AM sharp” kinda shit, minus the threat of the apocalypse. Still, like any other prediction of that sort, it can be verified—or not—simply by waiting it out. So he waits in the dusty yard of the cabin the following night, sitting on a worn blanket with another wrapped around his shoulders.

What arrives is a meteor—the biggest one Keith has ever seen in his life, and maybe the biggest one he ever will see. The fireball streaking across the sky is brighter than even the moon.

It doesn’t explode in the atmosphere as it should, though. “Oh shit,” Keith mutters. “Is that gonna hit? _Fuck_.” Maybe the apocalypse is coming after all.

_Go to it_, whispers the lion, from deep in the recesses of his mind. _Go to it NOW_. _It’s for you, Paladin._

It doesn’t feel the same as his other black impulses—it’s missing the desire to slip into non-existence, even though he’s being ordered to head straight for an impact zone.

_If you wait, you’ll miss your chance_, she adds.

“Fuck it,” Keith says aloud. Nothing left to lose now, anyway.

He takes the hoverbike. The meteor lands, with a _boom _that reverberates through the air and seems to shake the very rocks surrounding him as he speeds through the desert toward where it struck.

But it’s not a meteor, he realizes when he gets close. And there’s a good reason it didn’t blow up or leave a devastating crater.

It’s a fucking spaceship—and it’s not one of Earth’s.

He can already hear the distant rumble of Garrison jeep engines and see their lights bearing down on the crash site. There’s no time to investigate before they arrive; he has to ensconce himself in a nearby maze of boulders to avoid being caught.

Peering out from his hiding spot, he watches as the soldiers arrive and, within minutes, finish constructing a barrier around the spaceship. He’s gotta get them away from there somehow, or he’ll never get to see whatever’s inside it.

Inside the pack strapped to the hoverbike, he keeps explosives scavenged from abandoned mines in the area. They’re useful for clearing rockfall when he needs to reach a blocked region of a cave system, but right now, he just needs to make a big enough bang that they’ll leave to investigate.

A few well-timed blasts do the trick. Most of the Garrison officials jump into their jeeps and zoom off toward the explosions, minus a few that Keith had seen enter the barrier in hazmat suits. He deals with _them_ via a few seconds of hand-to-hand, sending them flying and clearing himself a path to the table, where they’ve got someone strapped down and unconscious.

He approaches the table, and when he gets a look at _who_ is lying there, his knees nearly give out. There’s a new scar that splits the skin of the man’s face and nose in a jagged line from cheekbone to cheekbone, and a patch of white hair where his bangs used to be silky black, but Keith would know him anywhere. Yet he can’t make himself believe it; can’t shake the notion that it could be a trick—a hologram—anything but true.

Holding his breath, he steps closer and touches the man’s face: it is warm, solid, and _real_. “Shiro?” he whispers.

If Keith had died, he would have missed this moment. A strange sort of heartbreak worms its way into his chest at the thought. He grieves for the boy who spent so many months believing there was no future for him; for the unhappy ending that never occurred, where Shiro returned to find _Keith_ gone. _It’s killing me_, he’d written—too close to the truth.

No time for that now. He pulls his knife from his belt and cuts the bindings on Shiro’s body. With strength he didn’t know he had, he lifts Shiro off the table. Shiro is making soft, pained moans, but he’s not really awake or able to support his own weight. “I got you,” Keith tells him. “It’s all ri—”

"Nope. No you—No, no, no, no, no, no, no you don't. I'm saving Shiro."

Some lanky kid is ducking under Shiro’s free arm. At least he doesn’t seem like much of a threat. Keith stares at him. “Who are _you_?”

Apparently, this “Lance” was in his class at one point, not that Keith would remember an annoying kid from first year who never made fighter class but has somehow managed to do so now. And Keith isn’t really feeling up to company right now, but he hasn’t been given much of a choice: Lance has brought along friends.

One of them, Keith recognizes, but before he can say her name, she puts her finger to her lips and shakes her head hard. Katie Holt in disguise is...honestly not that surprising, so Keith leaves it be. Whatever she’s up to, he probably supports it on principle, so he’s not about to spoil it.

Everyone is begging Keith to get them away from the Garrison officials. Okay, whatever. He is also not a fan of Garrison officials, and he also needs them all to keep their mouths shut. Letting them come with him seems like the safest option, even if it’s also the most irritating one.

They reach the cabin not many hours before dawn. Sleep is the first priority at this point—they’re all coming down from the rush of escaping, not to mention the cliff jump that Keith is _very _proud of, thank you very much. He scrounges up enough spare blankets for everyone to bed down on the floor, as gracious of a host as he can manage to be.

Shiro, of course, they have lain down on the couch. And just as Keith is tucking a blanket around him, he opens his eyes. “Keith?” he rasps.

“Hey, Shiro.” He’s vaguely aware that the other Garrison students are watching the two of them, yet at the same time, it feels as though they’re completely alone. Nothing matters outside their little bubble.

Shiro reaches up and touches Keith’s cheek, as if he too is checking that Keith is really there. “I thought I was dreaming. It’s really you?”

“Yeah, it’s really me.” There’s a wobble in Keith’s voice that he can’t seem to control.

Shiro’s eyelids are fluttering. “I want to tell you... so much...”

“You can tell me anything,” Keith promises. “But you should get some rest first.”

“Where are you sleeping?” Shiro wants to know.

In answer, Keith points at his own pile of blankets on the floor beside the couch.

Shiro pats the couch. “Come up here.” When Keith doesn’t move, he repeats the motion. “Come on, it’s okay.”

Keith can hear Lance whispering excitedly; then a grunt and a whined “Piiidge, what was that for?”

Katie—or Pidge, now?—hisses, “_Leave them alone._” Keith will thank her for that one day, but right now, Shiro is the only person of importance in this room.

Keith crawls up beside Shiro, cautious of his bruises. The couch is barely wide enough to fit them both, but Shiro’s arm comes around his waist, securing him.

“Your hair got so long,” Shiro marvels.

“Yeah, I uh—” Keith has only been cutting it enough to keep it out of his eyes. He knows the ends are ragged and it doesn’t look too good. “I need a haircut bad, I know,” he finishes.

The fingertips of Shiro’s free hand weave into his hair, tugging gently. “You look good.”

“You really don’t have to say that.”

“Keith. You couldn’t look ugly if you tried.”

Keith has no answer for that. He wraps his arm over Shiro. This _is_ better; Shiro was right. Keith can’t bear to take his hands off Shiro, let alone allow him out of his sight. Maybe Shiro is feeling much the same way.

That night, Keith sleeps better than he has in a year.

* * *

When Keith wakes, he’s alone, facing the back of the couch. For one horrible moment, he thinks he dreamed it all; then he rolls over and sees Shiro standing at the corkboard.

As quietly as possible, Keith gets up and makes his way between the students deep in slumber on the floor to join Shiro. “Morning,” he whispers.

“Hey there,” Shiro says, with that bright smile Keith has missed so much, he feels like his heart will explode upon seeing it again. “I see you kept yourself busy while I was...gone.” He’s touching the map, following the lines of thumbtacked strings to the photos and sketches Keith had been collecting. Then his fingers find the handwritten notes. “_It’s killing me when you’re away_,” he reads in a quiet voice. “Oh, Keith...”

“I didn’t expect you to ever see those.” Keith is starting to curl in on himself, he can feel it. Everything on that board is just a little too honest, and it’s like Shiro is staring right at Keith’s wounded heart.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to intrude.”

“It’s okay. I mean, I, uh—” Shiro’s gonna find out at some point, Keith figures. “I kind of read your journal?”

“Oh. All of it?” At Keith’s nod, Shiro’s cheeks color. “Well, to be fair, you did think I was never coming back. If I were you, I would have read my journal too. It’s okay.”

The inside of the cabin is starting to lighten, and Keith glances over his shoulder and out the window. The others will be awake soon, and he’s not sure he wants this whole conversation to be public knowledge. “Hey...want to go watch the sunrise with me?”

* * *

The morning is cool and a little misty as they walk up the small hill just in front of the cabin. From here, the sun is a slender line of fire just beginning to spill over the horizon.

“So, my journal,” Shiro says carefully. “There was a lot in there.”

“There was,” Keith admits. His stomach is in knots as he thinks about everything Shiro knows _he_ knows now.

But Shiro doesn’t seem angry at all—more like he’s sorrowful and resigned. “Is there...anything you want to talk about?”

There’s a great deal that they’ll have to talk about; a number of things Keith needs to clear up for his own peace of mind. “Eventually,” he tells Shiro. “But we don’t need to do it all today.”

“I need you to know that the guy who wrote in that journal—he was someone else, Keith. I hardly remember him now.”

“I remember him,” Keith insists. “And you will too, if you give it time. I’ll tell you everything I know about him. All the reasons I—liked him.”

Shiro’s jaw is tight before he speaks. “I don’t think I’m the same person. The things I’ve done—you don’t know—”

“You’re still you. I can feel it.” Keith puts his hand on Shiro’s shoulder and squeezes hard. “What happened out there, anyway? Where were you?”

“I wish I knew.” Shiro sighs. “My head’s still pretty scrambled.”

“That’s okay,” Keith assures him. “We have plenty of time.”

Shiro’s arm slips around his shoulders, and Keith leans into his side. Together, they watch the sun come up, until the dawn turns to daylight and their stomachs start to growl.

When they return to the cabin, the other students are up and about and rummaging through shelves in search of food. But Shiro heads straight for the couch, where he sits down and beckons Keith to join him.

Warily, Keith obeys, watching as Shiro picks up his old journal from the table and flips through it. At the end, where the pages are still blank, he stops. “Do you have a pencil?” he asks. Keith finds one for him, and Shiro adds one final entry:

_Last night, I came home, and Keith was waiting for me._

**Author's Note:**

> YEAHHH SO... it took me two years to finally write/finish this fic? I actually started thinking about it back when the Naxzela ep aired. Keith has never struck me as someone who would purposely try to end his life—but there are multiple occasions in which he seems to just...not completely recognize the _value_ of his life, or to feel that others’ lives matter more than his does. I found that relatable and interesting, and I began wondering how a mindset like that could have affected him in the desert after Kerberos.
> 
> I want to be very clear that my extremely personal interpretation of the Naxzela scene doesn’t mean that I don’t see Keith as a hero. If Lotor hadn’t arrived, Keith could have saved many lives. It meant a lot to me to see someone who reminded me of myself portrayed heroically. It also struck me because there have been times in my life when I ran toward danger, largely because I wanted to help people, but also because I felt little regard for my own safety. Being depressed and being heroic aren’t mutually exclusive. Of course, acting heroically doesn’t mean you must be depressed, either! But for some of us, a complex interaction is happening between those two elements.
> 
> I wasn’t ready to write this fic until now. I’ve attempted to write it several times, but I always gave up quickly because I couldn’t find the words, or because trying to describe certain feelings was still too upsetting. But the concept has been hanging out in the back of my mind all this time, and I felt it start to click this year, and then this bang was announced, and... here we are! I hope you enjoyed it. :)
> 
> Find me on twitter @ [belovedsheith](https://twitter.com/belovedsheith/)! I love talking, especially about sheith and writing and writing sheith!
> 
> * * *
> 
> referenced in Shiro's journal:  
T. S. Eliot - [The Hollow Men](https://allpoetry.com/the-hollow-men)  
Walt Whitman - [I Sing the Body Electric](https://poets.org/poem/i-sing-body-electric)  
Carl Sagan - [Cosmos](https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/3237312-cosmos)
> 
> * * *
> 
> There are a LOT of people who have helped me w/ this fic over the last few months, and I am sure that I'll forget some (and will come back to edit this list, haha), but...
> 
> [Casey](https://twitter.com/eadiletsum), for endless emotional support + beta work + making me feel like this was a story worth telling,
> 
> [Jess](https://twitter.com/warpspeed_chic), for getting me excited about the concept back when I was so nervous that I wasn't sure if i'd ever write it, and
> 
> [Nate](https://twitter.com/saucerfulofsins), for asking HOW I wanted to write it, and pretty much tricking me into starting. :p
> 
> * * *
> 
> If you are experiencing thoughts of suicide, whether it’s passive like Keith in this fic or if you’re actively planning, I urge you to ask for help from anyone you trust.
> 
> Some resources, in case you need them:
> 
> National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (USA) — 1-800-273-8255 | [Online Chat](https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/chat/)  
[Crisis Text Line](https://www.crisistextline.org/) (USA, Canada, UK)  
[International Association for Suicide Prevention](https://www.iasp.info/resources/Crisis_Centres/) (worldwide hotlines)  
”If you are thinking about suicide... read this first”
> 
> You are not alone. There are people who want to help you. I know this because I have been there—this fic is based heavily on my own experience. It's ten years of depression and ideation distilled into one year of Keith's life: most of what Keith thinks and feels is right out of my own mind. I am doing okay now, but I didn’t get here by myself. I had a lot of help. You deserve help too.
> 
> Next March will be four years since the last time I was in crisis. I hope that it never happens again, but the nature of depression is that I can’t know whether I’m free of it forever. But I know better how to fight it now, and I know that it’s worth it to try. It is worth it if you fight it, too.
> 
> I’m not trained as a therapist, so I can’t offer extensive advice on what to do if you’re depressed or suicidal. But I do invite you to contact me if you have questions about this fic or my experience with depression, or if you would like additional resources. Whether I know you or not, I care about your safety, and I want to help in the small ways that I can. <3


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